Demosthenes: “Choose which ye think expedient; and put hands to the work, while it is yet time.”

They say that you should keep quiet, though you are injured; but they can not themselves keep quiet among you, though no one injures them.

He is convinced, you will not submit to be slaves; if you were inclined, you would not know how, having been accustomed to command: you will be able, should occasion offer, to give him more trouble than any people in the world.

I say, you must either desist from these practices, or blame none but yourselves for the wretched condition of your affairs.

But I suppose, you inherit a reputation from your father and grandfather, which it were disgraceful in your own person to extinguish, whereas the ancestry of the state was ignoble and mean.